Imagine you’re a reporter after a major story, it involves loads of data, there are many different sides to the issue, and people to interview that have specific knowledge about it, be it technical, scientific, or just exclusive. Good journalists always delivered good stories on their own, and covered all the necessary angles to the subject. Working alone means full control of the process, from start to end, and a fair amount of discretion, secrecy, that often resulted in exclusives, the former bread and butter of good newspapers. But what if the process was public, and open to everyone?

I’m not saying all of the process, but some parts of it. If a journalist is snooping around, asking questions about something, doors will close anyway, that will open with new information and the need to answer, retaliate, whatever – sometimes a statement comes out of conflicting views. But the saying goes “two heads are better than one”, and if we ask for users to help, many minds will work for the same purpose.

The crowd could gather data, process it, provide input, suggest questions, and the journalist – besides having to do all the things he’s supposed to – would coordinate all of these contributions. This would improve the relationship between the users/readers and the journalist/story/brand. But if you are not a fan of full disclosure before publishing, why not do it afterwards? Release the videos rushes, the full audio, share the documentation and data you gathered in an open database. The advantages? Trust.

Transparency goes a long way, and it prevents journalists from backing off from the story too early or to make mistakes. The liability risk is smaller, and if it is a controversial subject, it’s not the singled out figure of the journalist that is at stake, but a whole community behind the story. Of course, this does not minimize the journalists importance or responsibility, quite the opposite.

“Us Now” producers made the footage available, transcriptions, download links for the full film, and i think this brings extra value to the work, instead of being commercially harmful. I like to see the bits and pieces that make things work, but if you don’t, just watch the finished version.